Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat: there is no shortage of apps and other tech tools that can help us get organized and focused. From tools that help you transcribe a discussion into organized notes, to apps that prompt you through your to-do list, and inspire you to complete simple tasks you’d rather procrastinate, technology can be a fantastic productivity assist.
Yet, today’s digital tools aren’t the only tools available to us. More importantly, there is value in embracing the analog methods that we used before tech took over.
In an age when you can jot down notes and reminders on everything from the laptop you’ve carried into a meeting with you to the phone in your pocket, pulling out good old-fashioned paper and pen may feel anachronistic. We’ve moved beyond this, right? Well, maybe we shouldn’t.
Whether you’re jumping into an active brainstorming session or settling into a presentation you really want to remember, writing down notes by your own hand can improve your long-term memory and understanding of the topic at hand.
Sure, listening intently to a speaker and letting your tech record and transcribe the session is a viable method of notetaking. Don’t, however, discount the inherent value in jotting down notes by hand. Whether you use a notebook and pen or a tablet and stylus, writing your own notes can help improve your ability to connect with, and remember, the material.
A 2024 study published in Frontiers of Psychology suggests that students who took notes by hand had higher levels of brain activity in the regions that control movement, vision, sensory processing, and memory. In other words, writing notes by hand may help you process and remember more. Conversely, typing notes and/or recording the presentation can skip a step – you’re not necessarily processing the information you’re collecting when you’re touch typing or listening disengaged from notetaking (because you’ve got a voice note app for that).
Sometimes we default to letting tech take our notes because jotting down the highlights by hand means we may miss something. It takes time to write down what we’re hearing. We might not get it all scribbled out on top paper (or at least not legibly!). At least that’s what we tell ourselves and it sounds like it’s perfectly sensical, right? Yet, the reality is that while we won’t jot down all the bits and pieces, we will take note of the important pieces.
In order to capture meaningful notes, we need to pay attention to what’s being said. We need to process and analyze it to measure its potential impact and value. We need to summarize it in our own words. We have to prioritize the bits we keep vs. the extraneous info we don’t need to track. This means we remain engaged and focused on the presentation. It means we are considering the information we’re being given, measuring it, rolling it over in our mind, and then connecting the capture of it to a bit of space in our memory bank.
Pen and paper notes move beyond words on a page. Your art skills may look a lot like stick figures and random lopsided shapes, but visual notetaking can be a powerful tool that combines text with graphical components to help you quickly capture highlights and make connections.
You’ve probably seen the videos of those fast-moving artists who create stellar art and notes reminiscent of a comic book or professional animated instructional storyboards. That’s one application for this sort of note taking but that doesn’t mean you need to produce visual notes of that caliber. Simple arrows connecting key points is another form of visual note taking.
Flow charts, rough sketches, shapes, and Venn diagrams all connect the different creative and memory centers of your brain to help you connect with, process, and retain new information. Amelia Crabtree’s 2017 article published in Harvard Medical School’s Professional, Corporate, and Continuing Education site gives a good overview of the how and why of visual notetaking.
From a simple scrap of paper to a notebook with a buttery soft leather cover, pick what works best for you. That’s the beauty of it. You can grab a one-subject plain notebook at a back-to-school sale or you can invest in a journal with a beautiful cover that brings a smile to your face every time you look at it. You can use a pencil or that pen a vendor gave you for free at the last trade event you attended. Or you can build an impressive stash of gel pens that smoothly flow across the paper in a way that makes you want to never stop taking notes.
Maybe it’s none of those. Maybe it’s an app on your tablet or phone with a stylus so you can convert your notes quickly to a digital file without giving up the tactile experience of note taking. There is no right or wrong way to approach handwritten notes. There’s just the set of tools and methods that works best for you.
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